


Queen of the Jolly Roger

by thestarsjustblinkforus



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A love Story, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29561442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsjustblinkforus/pseuds/thestarsjustblinkforus
Summary: In the middle of the ocean on the third day, the Jolly Roger cutting through the cresting waves, catching hold of a hearty gust, the first real tailwind since they had left port... sea spray had misted and landed on her eyelashes, rested there like jewels as the sails applauded her laughter, and the smile she turned on him then… free and wild and unrestrained... that smile tattooed itself instantly onto his heart…He was utterly bewitched within a week though admittedly he had been halfway there before they even set sail.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Milah
Kudos: 3





	Queen of the Jolly Roger

**Author's Note:**

> I made mention of Killian's earring in [Aurora Buzz](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29450754) and then it kind of inspired this little ficlet...

His Milah has hair wine-dark like the sea, a gaze as piercing as a sword and an even sharper wit, a soul of the finest silver and skin as smooth as silks from a faraway land. When she stands at the bow of his ship, she is his figurehead, lovely and mysterious as any mermaid but infinitely more dangerous for he had found very quickly he would give her anything she asked, would risk anything for her…

_“And I for you, my love…”_

From the first, he had found her husband to be an utter fool. Imagine allowing such a creature to languish in such _drudgery_. He had seen this woman even in the lowlight of the tavern shining through it all like a star through night clouds, a _starling_ among pigeons, iridescent with secret colours that could be unfolded if she were to spread her wings and fly with him if only for a night.

But she hadn’t. Not that night.

She followed him to the bar shortly after they spoke. She asked him to show her his ship. He gave her the grand tour, and for every corner of the Jolly Roger he shared a story of a place she might explore with him should she choose to come with when he left in 3 days’ time. He had kissed her in his quarters only to have her break away with a gasp, but she had promised to meet him at the tavern the next night.

She had arrived shy and taciturn for this second meeting but opened like a flower under his appreciative gaze, his interest, his overly familiar touches; a tendril of hair brushed behind her ear; a finger to the pendant hanging between her breasts from a chain as he murmured, _“Now where is this bauble from?”_

The playful inquiry had been met with a weary shrug and a flickering smile like a fragile flame he felt moved to tend to.

_“Here, of course.”_

Their third meeting, another side to the woman entirely and equally as intriguing. Surrounded by his crew he had warned ahead of time to be respectful or suffer for it later, she grinned as she won round after round of Cups crowing victoriously as he laughed and threw more coins onto the table, utterly delighted by her ungracious competitiveness.

And then her husband, the fool, came and spoilt it.

And the change in her had been instantaneous.

Her smile fell, all her previous merriment snuffed out completely and replaced with a hardness he had not yet seen and a voice dripping with an impressive amount of venom. He observed their encounter from behind his cup, saying little himself beyond a slight initial jab of his own as the lady could clearly hold her own, and his admiration for her swelled even more.

But the fool had brought her boy, a young lad with the same dark hair, and used him as a chess piece. She left quickly and without a word, thoroughly shamed and wrestled back into her place.

He had finished his cup, muttered, _“Bad form,”_ as he slapped it down on the table and gestured for another from the barmaid, his men grumbling in agreement.

He found her the next night when she didn’t come to meet him, waited by the well near her cottage and startled her in the dark. She had had a knife with her, and he had smiled, pleased at the flash.

_“Hello, love…”_

_“Killian…” She sheaths her weapon, sets her bucket on the edge and leans wearily against the stones, knowing instantly why he’s come. “You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you…”_

_“Aye, lass.”_

_Half in jest, half in hope, “Have you come to kidnap me?”_

_“If you like.”_

_The ‘I would’ was silent but heard and he took her hand in both of his, turning it over to press a kiss into her open palm._

_“We plan to set sail at dawn.”_

He waited for her on the dock, and just as he turned to board, her footsteps behind him running. He turned into a kiss, their first since that first night, and he lifted her off her feet, carried her to his quarters. 

And how bold, how wanting and grasping she had been, taking her fill of him and letting him indulge in the same, blushing all the while like a maid, all the versions of her he’d witnessed thus far fully flowering into the woman she is.

He left her sleeping in his bed as he returned topside where his men cheered and laughed and asked if he were finally ready to depart for the next port when a snivelling creature stumbled onto the deck and landed in a pitiful crumpled pile at his feet.

The fool.

The interaction left him utterly disgusted. He implied that his _wife_ had been _stolen_ for the express purpose of pleasuring his men on their journey and still _he did nothing_. He merely whimpered and pleaded and once again attempted to use her _boy_ , but would not raise a finger himself to save her from such a fate.

Any guilt he might have felt dissolved at that moment.

The fool - the _coward_ as Milah had called him all along - did not deserve her. He deserved nothing.

He had known the woman less than 5 days time and already knew her value, would happily draw blood to protect her honour though she seemed to him to be fully capable of doing so herself, and that night in his bed he kissed her tenderly, took her gently at the flash of hurt and disappointment in her eyes when he relayed the encounter.

 _“It was no more than I’d expect,”_ she said bitterly as she sank her nails into his back and urged him on.

In the middle of the ocean on the third day, the Jolly Roger cutting through the cresting waves, catching hold of a hearty gust, the first real tailwind since they had left port… sea spray had misted and landed on her eyelashes, rested there like jewels as the sails applauded her laughter, and the _smile_ she turned on him then… free and wild and unrestrained… that smile tattooed itself instantly onto his heart…

He was utterly bewitched within a week though admittedly he had been halfway there before they even set sail.

At every port, he bought her delicious fruits dripping with sweetness, dresses and trousers and waistcoats embroidered with golden threads, books of poetry he’d later read to her by candlelight as she mended shirts and sails with equal attention or as she’d lay spent and spilt across his bed after a tryst. Pages and pages of soft paper and fresh charcoal for her drawings pinned to his walls and anything else she ever asked for. He distracted her from her lingering sadness as best he could and chased her smile until it wasn’t a rare thing at all anymore but no less precious and this creature with her flashing eyes, her quick wit and hands, her gentle secret whisperings and grasping thighs, her plans and yearnings for more adventure, more treasure, more love, more, more, _more_ … became his.

His partner, his equal, his Milah.

On her first birthday spent with him, he bought her a pair of earbobs she had admired at a stall at their last docking. She had remarked they reminded her of the kind he favoured, and that the onyx teardrop made her think of the shark’s tooth Mr Starkey had found and presented to her after her sixth month with them. _“We’ll find enough to make you a crown,”_ he’d said as the crew banged their cups on the table. _“Queen of the Jolly Roger!”_ they’d called, and she’d laughed and raised her glass, her eyes on his as she drunk deep and he chanted along with the lot of them in full agreement.

His Queen, his mermaid, his Milah.

He had presented the earrings to her in bed, tangled in sheets and still entwined, a small red leather box nearly as fine as the contents it contained, and she’d smiled one of those smiles, the one that had been his alone as she caressed the engraved ‘M’ before opening it and gasping in pleasure.

She turned her head on the pillow for him to secure them for her and he had turned the screw carefully, gently, admired them glittering in the dark waves of her hair as she reached up and gently touched the silver hoop in his own ear that she occasionally caught between her teeth when lovemaking in a way that made his heart race even more, and whispered, _“I should like one of these as well someday…”_

And on the first anniversary of their meeting, in his private quarters, dressed only in candlelight, he had taken a needle and made her a pirate.

She wore his hoop until it healed and then replaced it with one of the onyx teardrops. She pressed its sibling into his palm with a kiss and he promised to wear it in her honour. 

Another year passed and she had her shark-tooth diadem as well, presented by himself on bended knee having procured the final and largest of them all for the centrepiece.

_“Will you be my Queen, my lady?”_

_“I thought you answered to no crown?”_

_“None but yours, my love…”_

_***_

He places the diadem on her head as he wraps her in a freshly washed sail, one that had been mended by her hand countless times, the stitching strong and ornate, starfish and seahorses embroidered onto patches in silver thread, her gifts to the Roger glittering in the sun. He touches her hair like the tumbled sea at night, he kisses her lips cold now and never to smile again.

His men lift her carefully, quietly, and he watches unable to look away as she slips into the sea lost to him forever.

And he turns his pain off like a spigot.

He holds the hook in his remaining hand and it gleams in the sun like a vicious silver fang but it had not drawn a drop of blood.

_“Killing me is going to take a lot more than that, dearie…”_

Well then, he will _sharpen_ it.

_“Good luck living long enough…”_

Oh, he will.

He knows of a place that will give him all the time he could ever need to find every way there is to skin a crocodile.

He is going to mount the demon’s head on his bow.


End file.
